Duracell Powermat is announcing a pair of new features to encourage sales of its wireless charging gear. The first is "Mesh Network," a set of controls that let multiple hotspots be centrally monitored -- so if you're stealing all the juice in the Wall St. Starbucks, central office can cut you off. On the upside, those same network features will enable you to find another charging hotspot on your smartphone, including Madison Square Garden and Jay-Z's 40/40 club. The second feature is that the latest mats will be able to vary the power on offer between 5 and 50 watts, making them capable of recharging smartphones, tablets and (potentially) Ultrabooks. Now all we have to do is work out how to power all of our electronics without arousing the suspicions of Jay-Z -- we'd hate to add a 100th problem to his worry list.

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Duracell Powermat Injects Unequaled 'Brains and Brawn' to Wireless Power

Wireless data fused with wireless power to create a dramatically smarter and more powerful technology

BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Mobile World Congress -- Wireless power received two major upgrades today, making it both smarter and more powerful in ways previously unknown.

Wireless Data 'Mesh Network' Adds 'Brain' to Wireless Power Delivering on the promise to make wireless power a 'smart' technology, Duracell Powermat has demonstrated wireless power surfaces that operate as a 'mesh network' – allowing 'Wireless Charging Spots' across the globe to be centrality monitored and managed.

This new network topography is ideal for use in public places such coffee shops, airports and arenas, enabling venues to monitor, upgrade and set policies for each Wireless Charging Spot from a centralized cloud-based system. "Ultimately it allows each venue to send and receive updates and instructions to each Charging Spot in real-time," said Daniel Schreiber , President of Powermat Technologies, the makers of the wireless charging technology that is the basis of all Duracell Powermat products. "This changes wireless power in public places from disjointed, standalone surfaces into a smart global network."

This transformation of an analogue consumer product into a digital enterprise platform allows for new consumer use-case scenarios and business models, including:

Apps that find the nearest available wireless charging spot wherever you are. Venues can control who can use their wireless power, for how long and on what terms. Enterprises with thousands of locations, and hundreds of thousands of wireless charging spots can monitor usage patterns, assess the health of their wireless power network and administer support and upgrades remotely.

"For companies deploying wireless power on an enterprise scale, the combination of wireless power with state-of-the-art communications protocols and cloud-computing is critical. This is what our system offers," said Ron Rabinowitz , CEO Duracell Powermat.

The Ability to Scale Power Delivery from Low to Higher Power Devices Gives Wireless Power Unparalleled 'Brawn' The second capability on display at the Duracell Powermat stand at Mobile World Congress 2013 is a true breakthrough in "brawn" for the wireless charging industry: Wireless Charging Spots that can scale from powering smartphones, through tablets and all the way to ultrabooks. Capable of delivering 5-to-50 watts of power, the new wireless charging spots use the same form-factor as the thousands already employed in public venues ensuring universal compatibility, while charging devices of various power levels at up to 93% efficiency.

"If you are going to deploy hundreds of Charging Spots, you want to ensure that they are future proof, "said Greg Economou , executive vice president corporate sales and solutions, Madison Square Garden . "Our decision to include Powermat technology in the transformed Madison Square Garden on such a large scale was a direct result of the technology being scalable to our needs and, most importantly, to those of our fans. We aren't aware of any other offering that even comes close."

The combination of both Brawn and Brain means that Duracell Powermat's Charging Spots are uniquely equipped for the scalability requirements of public venues. Indeed, in the USA close to 100% of publically available wireless power utilizes Powermat's technology – including in Madison Square Garden and in select Regis salons, Starbucks stores, Delta Sky Clubs and Westfield Malls and in Jay-Z's 40/40 Club.